Good Boy, Jim (Cigar Smoke 7-21-11)

I was sitting at the dog park the other day, just watching my dog, Archie, sniff a few butts, most of them dog butts, and it came to me in a Fido flash. Nobody ever names their dog Jim!

At first, it kind of pissed me off, but then again, most things kind of piss me off. So I thought about it for a few seconds and tried to mellow out. And I had to admit that nobody names their dogs Joseph or Marge or Vic or Davy, either. And although Johnny Cash sang about “A Boy Named Sue,” he never named his dog Sue. I couldn’t keep feeling persecuted and not liked and generally dismissed by uncaring, insensitive dog owners. I was almost mature enough to accept it.

And yet, I still fantasized. God, wouldn’t it be cool if there was, say, a big shaggy sucker drooling dog drool and someone was calling it in a masterly voice — “Here, Jim. Come here, Jim. Thatta boy, Jim.” Kind of brings a tear to my human eye. “Sit, Jim. Stay, Jim. Roll over, Jim. That’s a good boy, Jim.” Man, I haven’t heard those words since my first marriage.

Hey, this whole naming-your-dog thing is pretty interesting. I live in fear that some guy will ask me what my dog’s name is, and the guy will be 6-4 and weigh 270 pounds and have a tattoo of a bunny with a knife sticking out of it and I will say, “Uh, my dog’s name is Archie.”

And he will grab me by my chest hair and throw me up against a chain link fence and say, “Archie? That’s my name, too, asshole.” And I will say, “How did you know my name was Asshole?”

By the way, do you know why we named our Airedale Archie? (By the way, do you care?) Well, Airedales have a long horse head kind of head, and at first we thought of calling him Black Beauty, but he wasn’t black, and he wasn’t a horse, and that name had already been taken. And Trigger didn’t quite work, either.

Anyway, we struggled with picking a name for almost a week. And Archie was getting a bit ticked off. He had this sic ‘em look that said, “I’m not coming or sitting or staying if you just call me with that weak-ass ‘Here, boy’ shit?” And he had a point.

We had named our first Airedale, Hadley, after the English crime writer Hadley Chase. So, for a few minutes, we actually thought of calling Archie Chase. It was kind of different. Had the Chasey-kind of dog-fetchy reference and all, but ultimately we decided it was too cute and sweet and sappy, so we didn’t, and that decision may have saved a diabetic’s life.

So, after going through literally hundreds of dog names and after hearing one of our friends say in a loving way, “It’s just a dog, dammit! It’s not your frigging kid, you morons!” for some reason, we thought of the Archie comic books. And then Marge yelled out, “I have it! How about Veronica?” She was pretty disheartened when I told her Archie was a male.

And this is where that horse head thing comes into play. I suggested that because our yet unnamed dog had a long head, it kind of reminded me of Archie’s pal, Jughead. Marge said, “I just can’t name my dog Jughead. Somehow he would just know.” And I said, “Oh, I know he’s really smart. He only licks dead animals and dog feces. We wouldn’t want to offend his sensitivities.”

But that was not the final determining factor in our dog-naming pursuit. Yes, we had Jughead and a horse head and the Archie comics’ thing. But then we noticed his mangy, hairless head. We had gotten him as a rescue dog from the pound, and yes, he was bald.

So I said to Marge, “Why don’t we name him ArchiBALD? He has a what? He has a bald spot? And we can call him Archie for short.” Marge said, “How about Baldy or Spot?” I said, “Unless you want to experience male pattern spousal abuse, it’s Archie.”
And the rest is caninacle history. Archie it was. And Archie it is. “No, Archie! Get down, Archie! Bad dog, Archie!”

And it turned out kind of funny. Just after we finally named him Archie, I got a call from an old buddy I went to college with, RinTinTin Schwartz. (Yes, we called him Rinty in the dorm.) Anyway, he had married this little lassie from Scotland, and they were also trying to name their dog.

So I asked RinTinTin and his lassie, what they finally ending up calling their dog, and they said, “Schwartzie.”
“Here, Schwartzie. Roll over, Schwartzie.” I like it.